And it was another case of young men throwing their lives away.
V3541 Khuselo Selby Mbambani
V3721 Siphiwo Mjuza
49
Mbambani and Mjuza were charged with the robbery and murder of Mr Abner Monakali. Mbambani’s trial was heard first, long before Mjuza had even been arrested.
The events occurred at about seven in the evening of 20 April 1985 in Langa, a sprawling, overcrowded township outside Cape Town, inhabited mostly by African people who work in the city – or those lucky enough to be employed. It is a depressing place where the levels of poverty are such that even those who manage to scrape a few possessions together immediately become the target of criminals. Mr Abner Monakali was on his way home to his house in Sigcau Lane at about seven o’clock. He was fifty-eight years old and walked with some difficulty, relying on a walking stick. He was returning from church where he was a lay preacher and was carrying his Bible. He was not in good health and every now and then he had to stop his already slow progress to use his asthma ventilator.
Mrs Vuyiswa Yoyo was at home at her house in Jungle Walk. She heard Mr Monakali’s sister Nobuhle shouting that someone was being robbed outside. She went outside and saw three men crouched over a fourth. She recognised Mbambani and Mjuza and also Mr Monakali. Mjuza had something shiny in his hand. When some other women shouted at Mjuza he swore at them. She saw Mr Monakali trying to protect his pockets as he pleaded, ‘Don’t kill me!’ The third attacker ran away. Then the police arrived and Mbambani and Mjuza also ran away. A young neighbour by the name of Tamsanqa and a policeman ran after Mbambani. Mrs Yoyo later found Mr Monakali’s torn Bible and broken walking stick at the scene.
Constable Koli and Constable van der Westhuizen were on patrol in Langa when they came across the scene in Jungle Walk while the crime was in progress. In the headlights of their van they saw two men robbing a third, who was lying on the ground. Van der Westhuizen attended to the injured Mr Monakali while Koli and Tamsanqa gave chase after Mbambani. They caught him at a house in Sandile Street. Koli pulled Mbambani from the house by his arm. As they came out of the house Mbambani threw away a seventeen-centimetre-long sharpened iron rod with a makeshift wooden handle.
The police took Mbambani to the police station and subjected him to a thorough search. Constable Koli found a number of Mr Monakali’s possessions in Mbambani’s pockets: an identity document, the cover of a United Building Society savings book containing papers belonging to Mr Monakali, his wrist-watch, ten rand and two cents in cash, and his dentures. There were no injuries on Mbambani and no signs of intoxication.
Mr Monakali died on the way to the police station.
Mr Monakali had been of slight build, about one point seven five metres tall and weighing only fifty-three kilograms. The evidence of the specialist pathologist was to the effect that the cause of death was a stab wound to the chest on the right side. The wound entered the chest between the fifth and sixth ribs and passed backwards, downwards and medially through the right lateral border of the heart, transfixing the right ventricle. From the heart the path of this wound continued through the lower back surface of the pericardium, through the diaphragm, and through the liver to end on the front of the spinal column. The length of the wound was measured at sixteen centimetres. It was of uniform width throughout.
Mbambani admitted he had inflicted this wound. Moreover, the dimensions of the wound matched the weapon recovered from him.
The pathologist found a further thirteen wounds on Mr Monakali’s body. All of them could have been caused by a weapon similar to the one recovered from Mbambani.
The Court found Mbambani guilty as charged and could not find any extenuating circumstances on the murder charge. Hence, on 3 June 1986, Mbambani was sentenced to death. He received eight years imprisonment on the robbery charge.
Mjuza was arrested a month later, in July 1986, when Mbambani was already in the death cells. Mjuza denied being present when Mr Monakali was killed and robbed. He said that he had been at work that day, that he had taken a train and a taxi home after eight o’clock in the evening and therefore could not have been at the scene of the crime. He pleaded not guilty on the basis of an alibi supported by his employer.
Three witnesses identified Mjuza as one of Mr Monakali’s killers. The first was Mr Monakali’s sister Nobuhle. She had recognised Mjuza, whom she knew well. They had attended the same school from a young age and she had often seen him in Langa. In fact she had seen him earlier in the day and had spoken to him. When she heard the man on the ground shouting, ‘Don’t kill me. Take what you want,’ she ran to her friend’s house and told her that Mjuza was robbing someone in the street outside. At the time Nobuhle had no idea that the victim was her brother.
Two further witnesses identified Mjuza as one of the attackers. They also knew him well. ‘Voetsek!’ he’d told them when they’d tried to intervene to save Mr Monakali, as if they were dogs.
Mjuza’s advocate called his client’s former employer to support Mjuza’s alibi that he had been at work at the time Mr Monakali was being robbed and killed in Langa. The employer’s evidence was rejected as a pack of lies. Mjuza’s own evidence was rejected. The version he gave in court contradicted what he had told the investigating officer. The defence version was no match for the evidence of the three eye witnesses.
Mjuza was found guilty as charged, with no extenuating circumstances. He was sentenced to death on the murder charge on 6 March 1987, and ten years imprisonment on the robbery charge.
Mbambani and Mjuza were hanged together on 10 December 1987. They were the same age: twenty-five.
Durban
50
I took the boys for a run on the beach. It was our Saturday morning ritual.
They irritated me from the first step. They were either running too fast or too slow and they kept getting under my feet. I had to check my stride more than once and they were joking and chattering away like monkeys, as usual. After enduring this for some time I snapped at them.
‘Cut it out!’
They ran on in single file from then on, but cast reproachful glances over their shoulders at me.
Afterwards we had a shower at the municipal swimming pool and went to the shopping centre for breakfast. I felt removed from the conversation around the breakfast table and stood frustrated in the queue at the bank.
I moped around the house the rest of the day until my wife had had enough.
‘Why don’t you go and play tennis with your friends?’ Liesl suggested.
‘I don’t know where we’re supposed to be playing,’ I said.
Liesl picked up the phone and said, ‘I’ll find out.’
The game was at Colin Steyn’s. Months earlier when the game had been at my house, he had said, ‘He is as good as dead.’ That day felt a lifetime removed. I did not want to field a thousand questions about how the case was going and fell asleep in front of the television instead. The boys tiptoed in and out of the room from time to time to see if they could interest me in some game in the backyard, but I pretended to be asleep. Eventually I had to get out of the house. I was depressing everybody.
I found them still on the court at Colin’s house. They were playing with their usual gusto, rugby players who had come to tennis late, hitting the ball with more power than finesse. I sat under the shade of the pergola and waited for the tea to arrive. Colin’s teenage sons were wrestling with their dogs. It was a happy scene, the sounds of birds mixing with the drone of suburban traffic in the background. The shouts of the boys and the heavy breathing of the bull mastiffs were punctuated by the thuds of the tennis balls on the racquets.
I had to get up a few times to fetch balls that had gone over the fence and once I was called upon to settle an argument over a line call. I called the play, as I had seen it, against Colin and his partner. They appealed as soon as I announced my ruling, but I ruled that the appeal was out of time. Play resumed.
My sweaty mates came up from the court as I
poured the tea.
‘My, but you look miserable,’ said Colin.
‘I saw you on television,’ said Mark. ‘And you were looking miserable then too.’
I told them about the week’s events in Pretoria.
‘How old did you say your client was?’ Colin asked, keeping an eye on his sons. They were now wrestling each other while the dogs tried playfully to get a bite of a leg or an arm.
‘Eighteen when he first escorted a prisoner, and just over twenty now,’ I answered.
‘It is a disgrace,’ said Colin. ‘They are making normal people do things for which they are not suited or qualified. It is a disgrace, making boys do their dirty work for them.’
‘But haven’t you sentenced some people to death yourself?’ asked Mark.
Colin was quick to admit that. He finished his tea before he launched into a monologue.
‘There is a process of denial involved here, I think. Everyone passes the buck to someone else. I sentence them to death, and say I do it in the name of the law. The Sheriff says he just stands and watches; it is the Hangman who does the killing. Even the State President absolves himself of blame. He simply says the law must take its course; he will not intervene. I bet you the Hangman will also have an excuse.’
He looked at me. ‘Isn’t that so, Johann? What does he say?’
I thought about it for a while. The Hangman had not featured prominently in the trial. ‘I think he would say that it is gravity that kills, not the pushing of the lever.’
‘Well, he may say that or something else like orders from higher up,’ said Colin. ‘But you see, there is a collective denial of responsibility by everyone. The worst part of it is that the public bay for the death penalty but they have no idea of the extensive legal and administrative processes involved. And, of course, there is so much secrecy surrounding the execution process itself that their opinion on the death penalty is the opinion of the uninformed.’
‘I say hang the buggers,’ said Paul, an industrialist who had been suffering regular burglaries and labour problems.
Colin ignored him. The conversation had turned too serious for a tennis afternoon. ‘You are in denial too,’ he said pointing at me with a biscuit.
I didn’t know what he meant. However, he lost no time elaborating on his theory.
‘The legal profession is part of the collective denial surrounding the death penalty. You, me, everyone. We stand mute as the bulk of the death sentence cases are being handled by the most junior advocates, ostensibly at the request of the Court, but in reality because no one else cares enough to ensure that there is a competent defence available to every person accused of a capital crime. And those junior advocates appear without any support system. There is no instructing attorney or an investigator to assist them.’
I opened my mouth to argue that a poor defence is better than no defence at all, but he cut me short. ‘Didn’t you do your share of those cases in your first six years? I know I did. And I can tell you with the benefit of hindsight, I was ignorant, unskilled and a poor excuse for a defence lawyer.’
He was at full speed now. ‘Look,’ he continued, ‘they hanged at least a hundred each year in those years and we just stood and watched. We acquiesced. We’ll be condemned for that one day, mark my words.’
What could I say? He was right, and everyone in the profession knew it. The profession as a whole, as a collective, would carry the shame forever. We were damned both ways. If you participated in a capital trial you were an unmistakable part of the machinery, as much a part of the killing process as the Hangman’s rope. And if you didn’t step forward to defend the hapless soul on trial for his life your decision could equally result in his finding himself on the trapdoors with his feet on the marks and a white hood on his head.
The discussion did nothing to lighten my mood and we eventually turned to our usual chatter about the tennis and where we would play next week. They nominated my court. ‘Then you can tell us all about the outcome of the case,’ they said.
They went back on court and I left after watching for a while. The next Saturday was a long way off.
I went for another run the next morning. A heavy mist had settled over the area, giving it an eerie Wuthering Heights feel. Tall trees became mere stumps as the mist obscured their higher reaches. There was no traffic – it was too early on a long-weekend Sunday for that – and none of the usual birdsong and animal noises associated with a spring morning in the leafy suburb. My running shoes made squelching noises on the oily surface of the road and the humidity quickly wet my hair and glued my running singlet to my back.
As I ran my thoughts wandered in and out of the case in much the same way that I entered and left foggy patches. Various images sprang up in my mind, the gallows chamber in a fog of its own, a car backfiring in the distance sounded like a gunshot. One after the other the crime scenes played in the theatre of my mind like those half-hour serials before the main feature in the matinee shows of my schooldays, except there was no Green Archer, no Zorro to rout the criminal and save the distressed victims. One by one I revisited the cases Wierda and I had been studying.
Halfway across a pedestrian bridge over a railway line – I don’t know why I took the bridge, because the trains were no longer running – a revelation stopped me in my tracks. Wierda and I had been pressing Labuschagne repeatedly to tell us what was so unusual about the men they had hanged during those last two weeks, but on each occasion he had denied any insight. Yet my subconscious now suggested there was something in it after all. I leaned on the bridge railing to catch my breath and to allow my thoughts to settle. What if these men did have something in common that our client had discovered? What if that discovery had driven him to despair, or violence, even murder? What if what these killers had in common was not the fact that they killed in gangs or packs, or their stupidity, or lack of rational motive? What if the only thing they had in common, apart from their utter evil and the complete lack of empathy they had shown for their victims was the way they treated women? I thought of Moatche and his two companions repeatedly stabbing their defenceless victim on another pedestrian bridge over a railway line, in full view of their female friend. They acted as if she was not there. Scheepers and Wessels had killed the women they and their companions had abducted and raped, and turned a deaf ear to their victims’ pleas for mercy. Mokwena raped and killed an old woman, then buried her in a shallow grave before he treated himself to a meal of chicken prepared in her kitchen. Delport savaged a young girl and threw her into the river to drown. And so it goes on, one after the other. There was Klassop, killing an old lady who could have been his mother, Mbele, Rabutla and Phaswa, abducting and raping Sarah Ngobeni. Hansen, Leve, Smit, Maarman, they were all the same in this respect. I had just finished reading Mbambani and Mjuza’s cases and could recall clearly what they had said to the three women who were protesting as they robbed and stabbed Mr Monakali. ‘Voetsek,’ they had shouted at the women. These men had treated women worse than dogs.
And when it came to crying for these men after their execution, the ones who came to the funeral service and cried over the coffins were the women. I thought of Liesl. Had I neglected her in the two weeks I had been in Pretoria? I had. I had hardly called.
I walked home slowly as the sun started clearing the mist. How could I not have seen this earlier? Was this perhaps what Labuschagne had realised, looking at his own circumstances, and why he was so desperate to seek help from his pastor? Had he treated Magda worse than had been exposed thus far? Maybe that would explain her father’s refusal to let her have anything further to do with Labuschagne. And it would explain the interdict.
Was there any relevance in this at all? Perhaps there was nothing in it, but I couldn’t help wondering why Labuschagne had not allowed his mother and his sister to comfort him. Was that not a form of abuse, and why was he continuing with it?
I spent most of the Monday in my chambers, reading up on the law. I had avoided criminal law for a
lmost a decade and had some catching up to do.
When I got home in the late afternoon, it was time to pack my bags for the next morning’s flight. I have hated Sunday afternoons all my life, ever since my boarding school days when Sunday afternoon meant packing your bags and getting ready to say goodbye. This Monday, the last day of the long weekend, was much worse. I would have given anything not to have to return to Pretoria.
Liesl came in and watched me pack in silence until I sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘You have to get out of this case,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but it’s just another week and then it will be over.’
‘A week is a long time when you’re away from home.’
She had caught me by surprise. I looked at her more closely. There was a double meaning there, but was it deliberate? Liesl was looking out over the garden. The boys were playing tennis and there were squeals of delight and grunts and laughter and the usual arguments.
‘For the boys,’ Liesl added, but she couldn’t fool me. There was just the faintest hint of a smile.
She took my hand and we sat there until the boys came trooping back to the house for dinner.
I was in that deepest part of sleep that sailors call the ghost watch when I was woken by our pair of geese. They were the most reliable watchdogs and they guarded the front section of my property between the house and the tennis court, always announcing the slightest encroachment into their domain with loud and indignant fanfare. The goose had been sitting on a clutch of four eggs for some weeks, slowly losing her feathers and condition. This time there was distress in their protests and I could hear the flapping of their wings in the otherwise quiet night. I heard some panting and beasts running around.
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